Penance.

The verb form is archaic, but so are Dragons, if you ask, well, anyone.  Penance and repentance are siblings, arguing with their parental source on the premise of absolution.  I’m still hazy on religion, but I’m also human and the idea of absolution is a tempting one.  I don’t believe any one person (or omnipotent being, or glowing-eyed Dragon, or whatnot) has the key to the moral and ethical commitments an intelligent, self-aware individual requires as part of his, her, or zher, (or whatnot) contribution(s) to society.  It’s something you have to decide for yourself. A religion might be a great starter tool-kit, but most people don’t go through the whole workbook and even those who do don’t end up with similar results.  I kind of doodled on some pages in my own and figured that if even the great ethicists (or even the dime-a-dozen ones on the internet) can’t come up with a consistent, uniform formula, it doesn’t exist.  I guess it depends if, well, the words, “It depends,” means you win or lose.  For me (and Kant) that’s a bit of a loss condition, and I think that’s why a lot of people turn to religion; the answer is, “No, it’s immoral,” and you don’t have to poke at it.  Me, I’m a born poker.  If every good rule is supposed to produce a result or solve a problem (paraphrasing something Rob Donoghue said once)  the desirability of those results can’t be relative to those following the rules, or basically you’re hacking the holy book.  At which point, you’re either a priest or a sinner.  Okay, forget the “or,” — it might be, “and.”

Absolution tempts because it plays on the assumption one is guilty and releases or directs the need to change to correct the problems.  It’s not being given a hall pass, but instead it’s like the points on your license expiring, or that one time you had a credit mistake eight years ago.  Or more like your sins (however minor or major) being wiped off the blackboard of this lifetime.  (Fine, some people may have stone tablets and it gets chisel’d off, but I figure penance is possibly writing “I will not mess with Dragons,” a hundred times on the metaphorical blackboard.  Plus, then I can do that metaphorical nail screetch thing that is probably going to go the way of my vinyl, with kids having no idea what we mean.  Not that they’d necessarily know what a metaphorical nail-to-the-chalkboard would be, anyway, since I’m kind of grasping at an example of it, and it was my metaphor.)

I stood staring at the black waves, the palpable chill from the wind over it, and the roaring of some kind of seven-headed beast in the distance.  I didn’t know if it had exactly seven heads, but I was making a religious reference (if you insist).  Of course, there were thirteen gods I was supposed to rock to sleep and/or sing a lullaby to, which means that maybe there’s something to numerology.  My number is six, so you know, characteristics being responsibility, balance, and protection.  My lifepath number is 7, meaning I am supposed to have a gift for analysis and keen observation.  My inner dream number, however, is 9, which means I dream of being creative, and would love to be a person people count on for support and advice.  Of course, I could be making all of this up, which seems just as likely as it is real.  I think that was Bibi’s rule for astrology, during our brief courtship phase: if you could do a set of descriptors blind of their labels, and still find that only one truly identifies you, then maybe there is truth to it.  I may be a Gemini, but I think my spam folder is a better oracle than the daily app on my phone.

I turned back to look at Peredur.  He was watching me, and his expression was unrevealing.  “Do I rush in and charge?”

“You do not tell me how to be a Dragon, and I do not tell you how to be what you are,” he said, displeased.

“True, I’m no Saint George type,” I said, hoping to needle him slightly.

“That you are most assuredly not,” he said, and maybe there was a bit of humour hidden in the words. Oh well, if I can’t defeat them, perhaps making them laugh was a fair result.

Zach had been teaching me theory about, and practice of my  gifts.   This should have been the equivalent of a pop quiz, I decided.

I was used to drawing upon my power by going quiet, almost meditative, but Zach had pointed out that some Portals had such a discord to them that I couldn’t wait for perfect conditions.  He’d have the sibs poke at me or turn the television up too loud on a commercial to try to create a distraction.  I had to focus what I felt was my imagination on the subject, and then open to listen to find similarities instead. I tried telling Zach that every opening was unique, but he pshaw’d my opinion. He said I was being a bit of a diva, and that there were only so many ways to open a door, so if I could find a linkage I would know how to close them more quickly.

I came up with a plan.  Actually, I came up with several.  The first involved jumping on Peredur in some kind of heroic move and convincing him to send me home so I could get a good meal and a night’s rest, but that ended up in me looking like Daffy Duck after Marvin the Martian pulled out a disintegration gun.  Not having a handy Porky Pig (and no, I’d never call Ed that) with a re-integration gun, I stopped that train of thought.  Throwing a temper tantrum was out. Calling the King a fink wasn’t going to help. Pretending I was in a video game might help, but I felt Peredur would doubt my sanity if I started making noises when I reviewed my inventory.  Not that I really cared what he thought, but it’s easy to say that. The truth is, when it came down to it, he was the only other person (if you could call him that) around, and so his opinion probably held more weight than usual. So looking foolish wasn’t going to improve his opinion of me, nor was it going to improve my situation.  I did make a beep-boop noise just to amuse myself as I checked to make sure my phone was okay despite the cold and the wet clothing I was wearing.  I wasn’t going to pull a Bear and go bare just because I was briefly soaked. Hopefully this wasn’t going to be an adventure.

I almost laughed aloud at the thought.  I brought the distractions to a close and tried to focus on what I needed to do.  I needed to keep the universe sealed so an old one didn’t break through.  And, of course, afterwards the Dragon could drive me through a taco place for a midnight snack.

I’m like a superhero in my id.  Flowing and outrageously ludicrous cape, big “E” on my chest, plumber’s wrench in my left hand…

The first part was to translate the feel of the gate, get its dimensions. I could do that from here, without having to find the Beast first.  I knew time is one of those things we all feel differently, and space is really flexible and relative. All of that place where we aren’t is space, and so is the place we are, which means that I regularly deal with things that are bigger on the inside, and I don’t fear paradox. I mean, if paradox came up behind me and tapped me on the shoulder, I might jump, but that’s not really limited to paradox. And I am vaguely familiar with the truth so it rarely ambushes me like a grotesque.  I try to keep it in my peripheral vision, especially when dealing with things Beyond.  Alas, they’re no good for beds or baths.  Nevermind.

The Beast roared and I listened.  I listened for the patience in it, the years spent behind the door, not the active but the negative space of immortality.  I listened for the pain, its weakness, its anger, and its fears.

“Everyone wants to love how they want to love, and everyone wants to be closer to free,” I said aloud.

“You can’t always get what you want,” Peredur challenged me with the right cadence.

“Yeah, yeah.  Everybody wants to rule the world,” I sighed.

“People are people,” he sighed with me.

“I guess it makes sense that you’re a first wave kind of guy.  Primordial and all that, crawling out of the sea all evolved from magical protoplasm or whatnot.”

Peredur looked kind of uncomfortable for a moment.  “Doloise listened to much of your music.”

“Yeah, I don’t know if I’m even all that familiar with anything recorded this century,” I decided.  I had caught her trying to dissect some Flogging Molly once, but I tried to repress that memory.

“I’ve a better ear than for the tongs and bones,” he said. “Surely, you know our kind weaves ‘the olden dances, mingling hands and mingling glances.'”

“Is the world that full of sorrow?” I said, suddenly caught by a thought.

“Do we not dwindle?  Does the mystery and the magic not slowly be shut out for the love of apathy and criticism?”

“Hey, I’ve argued that viewpoint before, and I’ve come to the conclusion that that path isn’t living.”

“And so, they wander the path of death. Are you surprised, mortal? We’ve made it so clear that you’re not lasting, and yet my companions are fewer in name and nature as time so slowly passes.  Perform your talent. I have no wish to see the Beast by dawn’s light.”

“What, fifteen minutes from now?” I muttered.  I turned away again.

Concentration wavered.  I kept considering the problem, trying to turn it into an equation.  A word problem.  Something I could solve.    I was shivering, and cold. And wet. And miserable. Maybe Peredur had some kind of internal combustion, but I was running out of energy and brain.  My stomach growled, and I shush’d it, absentmindedly. It sounded nothing like the roars of the Beast.

Okay, first part. The roars.  Separate them from the doorway.  The doorway was huge, and stood on the threshhold, not too far from where we waited.  It held elements of sand, water, and sky.  (I don’t believe in these four-element separations.  There’s at least one-hundred and eighteen, and all of those that haven’t been discove-ah’d.)  Still, when you’re closing a door, it’s good to know what it’s made of.  If it’s too fragile, you could break something.  At least I think so.  I don’t know if that would be leaving it open or destroying the framework or what, but it follows with what I know to be true so let’s figure that works.

The door was being worn away by the howling. I could feel where it shuddered and shook, and weakened.  I could feel the creature behind it, and I…

Peredur caught me before I fell back into the water.

It was big.  I had a vision of it, a glimpse of what it projected.  It wasn’t as large as the Water Prince, but then again, it wasn’t much smaller.  It had teeth and foulness, like a breath of bad cheese and cess, and a row of large, unblinking eyes around its circular jaws.  It roared from a throat raw with anger, and for a moment, I feared it sensed me.

The Dragon grinned a smile of impossible teeth.  I struggled away from his arms.

“Much of it is instinctual. Interesting,” he said.

“Yeah, I picked up all sorts of instincts from re-runs of The Flintstones,” I suggested.  “This Beast isn’t going to make for good take-out.”  I had scuttled over to the rise, and attempted to brush sand off of myself again, no matter how useless the endeavour.

“I meant your talent.  You slammed shut a ward without ritual or sign.  A weak one, but nevertheless, one to recognize.”

“That’s far more praise than Zach offers it.  He says things like ‘proto-embryonic shielding,’ and makes references to the Teletubbies,” I said, frowning.  I hadn’t realized I’d done anything at all.

“A trained wizard still requires rundles,” he said, choosing a word, “pegs, tacks…”

“Shortcuts?” I offered.  I determined to look up ‘rundles.’

“Of a sort.  A weave of spell patterns that can be quickly drawn tight, with a word, thought, or gesture.”  He scratched his chin, thinking.  “Sometimes in response to another stimuli, but not exactly what I would call instinct.”

The roar this time was softer, or maybe I was just getting used to it.  It still raised the hair on my arms and that area just above the nape of my neck.  I shuddered.  “Fascinating,” I said, trying to sound partly like Spock, and partly sarcastic.  Musing on vocabulary in between action was my schtick, and the Dragon wasn’t allowed to steal it.  Hadn’t he ever heard of niche protection?  (Which is kind of like role copyright.  Which was a complicated thought I wasn’t allowing myself to develop any further.) “Apparently I’m instinctively a coward ready to bunker down at the first sight of something with sharp, pointy teeth.”

“That is not what makes you a coward,” Peredur said.

I couldn’t parse his expression, or tone of voice, so I blathered through it. “Thanks. You know, I’m okay with being a coward. Cowards get to run from history and write it down so other cowards don’t have to repeat it.  Or something pithy I’m too cold, too hungry, and too scared to put together right now.”

“Mark Twain waved a similar banner, but your Shakespeare put the words in the mouth of one of his characters that a coward dies many times before his actual demise.  The words are ephemeral, and the rule only partially true,” he shrugged.

“I’m sure there’s no such phrase in Klingon,” I shot back.

“Today would be a terrible day to die,” Peredur said, eyes glinting for a moment. “I will not hold you back if you insist.”

“Have I thanked you recently?  I mean, really expressed how happy I am that you got all wrapped up in my life and made it so…interesting?”

“You are welcome,” he said.  What else had I expected?

I hit my fists against the sand, which abraded the skin and added that pain to the list of my complaints.  Fine. I got out of here when I sent this thing away.  I stood up, facing the invisible gate, hands still clenched in fists.

“Go away,” I shouted.  “This is not your time.”

I don’t think it heard me, but I felt a little better.  “Go away!” and this time, I brought a crash of sound across the patterns of the gate with a gesture that opened my hand as if throwing something towards it.  “Get off my reality’s lawn!”  It was the sound of someone slamming their fist randomly on the keys of a piano.  I pulled it tighter, my eyes shutting as I used the vision of my mind instead of my easily-manipulated eyes.  The discord changed from a piano to a violin, or some other kind of stringed instrument.  Not a gittern.  I made a low humming noise, something more stable than the roaring, and wove it into the gate.

I heard a sound from Peredur.

Dragons.  This was one of Naul’s things, a leftover from the Dragon’s works.  My hand fluttered back and forth, weaving the smell of her smoke, and the heat of her flame into the door, strengthening it.  The roaring faded further.  The look of her eyes, the blue as I caught them in a flash on a cloudy day, the passion of Ivan’s love in his words about her… this I used to strengthen the door.  I felt her for a moment, a whisper, the sound of scales sliding against the ground. She was in pain, her mouth filled with thorns.  A breath of fire and the thorns burned, and I thrust that pain at the gate, the thorns poking inward, towards the Beast, the smoke smelling more like Peredur’s exhalations.

The growl I hear is from the Dragon next to me.  I ignore it.

What had been fraying was now mended, and the portal was stronger for it.  I was being pushed out of the threshhold, but I had more to do.  I thought of Peredur’s eyes, and of the way my body responded as a lesser dragon, one where he merely needed to tilt his head and I was controlled.  I closed the door with that anger, to match the roars of a now silent Beast.  I closed the door with the feeling of a Dragon’s scales, with the feeling of flight, with the feeling of helplessness in his wake.

Peredur knocked into me, and the spell was broken.

“You dare?” he asked.  Only if it had been in chat, it would have had capital letters and a whole trail of exclamation points and a few question marks at the end.  “You dare pin anything of me within the door?”

Um.  Oops?  No.

“You dare whisk me away into the darkness and think you come away unscathed?”

I was cold.

I was wet.

I was hungry.

I was angry, and none of those other things mattered as I held my ground.

There was a tension between us, a heat that rose in the atmosphere, a thin line of anger that strengthened me enough to stare him in his strange glowing eyes, to watch as the smoke and embers of his expression popped into flame.

And then died down, banked as he laughed.  Laughed loud, almost as loud as the roar of the Beast.

I guess I could have felt belittled by the laugh, been angry that he was chortling at me, but I was tired.

“I owe you a feast, young heart.”  He had never called me that before.  “Come now, what has happened is not all ill.”

“Is this the part where you turn me into an electric lizard again?” I asked.  I was tired.

“What, you would make me a creature of burden, harnessed and branded by your desires?  No.  It is safe again to flit you back into the world you know through shortcuts, veils, and thinly webbed entrances.  We leave a trail so that what the Beast called is scattered, and perhaps seeks easier prey.”

“You do know you’re talking about fermenting my reality like Emmental cheese, and I really don’t like that.”  I felt drained, listless. Feeling like a dragon might even have been better.

“I can go through only the established gates, but it takes longer and appears weak.  However, for your sake, I will consider your ridiculous imperative to maintain the artificial sanctity you hold so dear.”  He put his arm around me.  “How do you feel about … seafood?”